


More Dreadful

by havisham



Series: the arthurian modern au (for no real reason) [1]
Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Daddy Issues, Deliberate Badfic, Half-Sibling Incest, Mommy Issues, Multi, POV First Person, Sheep, Surprise Pairing, Swearing, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 05:34:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2217636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mordred attends his mother's funeral. Unfortunately, so does the rest of his family. </p><p>(Now completed and betaed, but still a modern AU for no real reason.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Dreadful

Mother had died the way she lived - sandwiched between two lusty twenty year olds, in mid-orgasm. She had left instructions to us, her sons, to throw her a lavish funeral -- which we had done. She also wanted us to make sure Arthur didn’t interfere -- which we had also done. 

Such an occasion in Orkney was, of course, to be a grand affair. Minus a few signs of modernity and the ever-present mobiles in everyone’s hands, the place must be much the same since the Stone Age. At least today, there were slightly more people milling about than there were sheep. I looked around. The turn-out was a bit of a surprise, actually. There were people from all walks of life here. For a woman who had left Orkney exactly once after her marriage, my mother certainly had made a lot of friends. 

We gathered around the grave, once the priest has stopping speaking. I, for one, had barely heard what he had said. I tend to grow deaf in the presence of priests. I hadn't darkened the doorstep of any church since I was sixteen -- the year I had discovered who my father was. It had been another point of contention between my mother and I. Whatever went on in her personal life, she was a devoted church-goer and raised her children to be the same. But thinking about it now, I don't think any of my brothers were especially religious. Maybe Gareth, but I usually didn't talk to him about that sort of thing. We rarely talked as it was. 

Given the gruesome and bloody circumstances of Mother’s death, her funeral was a closed-casket affair. But there was an over-sized portrait of her by the grave, with all her youthful beauty on display. (This was also one of her stipulations -- I don't think she could have predicted her own murder, but she did want to remind us of what she had once been.) Her large grey eyes, thickly lashed, looked down on us with an inscrutable expression. She was wearing a leopard-print dress and her dark masses of hair quite overwhelmed her small face. 

The whole thing was so tasteless and horrible that it made my eyes well up with tears. I was going to miss her.

Gawain yawned loudly. He and Ragnelle had come up with their boatload of kids, all who looked like him, with bits of her in them to make things interesting. One of them turned to give me a stink-eye. He had a big mop of curls that would be cruel to describe as orange, but it was. His name was Lovell, and he deserved it. Shithead. 

Gaheris lurked somewhere behind Gawain, but that was to be expected. He was most comfortable in Gawain's shadow. There really was nothing more to be said about him. 

Of us all, Gareth was the most broken up about our mother’s death. Of course, he _would_ be, he was always her favorite. It pleased her vanity to think that someone so pure and good could have come from her -- and that lout, Lot, her husband. Gareth was the best of us, or at least he tried to be. 

I looked around for Lynette, who was always good for a laugh at times like this. Her jokes could take your skin off and have you _like_ it. I don’t know how a girl like her ended up with a wet noodle like Gareth. Well, I suppose like everyone else, she found his limpid, almost albino-like beauty extremely appealing. I couldn't see it, myself, but I took after Mother in looks, if nothing else.

But Lynette was nowhere to be found and I saw that Gareth was reflexively opening his large, white hands and staring at them as if in shock. Maybe Gareth was more upset with Lynette leaving than our mother dying. Or maybe Lancelot had come over and sent my brother into crisis again. Or maybe he had actually killed Lynette before coming here. Anything was possible, really.

Aggie wasn't there, but no one could expect him to be. He was the one who blundered into Mother’s bedroom and shot her and one of her lovers, that stupid Pellinore boy. Her other lover, Elaine, had managed to escape through the bedroom window and run for help. His trial was coming up, but I don’t think I’ll go. Family solidarity be damned. 

And then there was me. Mordred, the black sheep of a family that had more than its share of murderers, saints and sinners. You don't need to hear any more about me, do you?

“Psst, Mordred. We’re going back to the house. You coming?” said Gaheris. 

It seemed like I was the only one left. Already the west wind was stripping off the petals from the banks of flowers adorning Mother’s grave. I blinked and said, “Yes, of course I’m coming.” 

* 

I was holed up in my old room, listening to the shouts of laughter coming from downstairs. I didn't know how I used to stand living here, day in and day out. The room itself was small and cramped, but I hadn't helped things by taping every available surface with posters from bands I had never actually listened to. The air was dusty and carried with it the reek of old socks and abandoned dinners. Just being here made me feel young and pissy and _trapped._

So I left, following the voices of my family down the stairs, into the sitting room that had been officially dubbed the heart of the house, mostly because of the enormous liquor cabinet that dominated the left-hand wall, opposite the fireplace. Gawain was there, a drink in hand, reading something out.

“ _More Dreadful!_ Scottish author spends most of his second novel obsessing over his own crippling daddy issues and other people’s sordid affairs.” 

Everyone laughed, and I crossed the room and grabbed the paper from him. Gawain, in a good-natured mood, didn't put up a fight. I wasn’t surprised to see that the review had been written by one of Guinevere's cronies. She had never liked me, and of course, the best way to get in her good books was to attack me. I crumpled up the paper and crossed the room -- someone had tried to make a blazing fire, but it was rather pathetically small. But it grew brighter and hotter after I carefully fed that trash into it. I didn’t look at anyone.

“We have twelve more copies of that,” Gawain said behind me, cheerfully. 

Have I mentioned that I hate my family? And that they hate me? 

*

After that, Gaheris, in a rare show of initiative, came along with bottles of whiskey older than any of us, possibly older than the house itself. (The site had been inhabited for at least a thousand years, but thanks to a drunken ancestor and a forgotten candle, the house only dated back to the early nineteenth century.) The rest of the evening was very murky after that -- all I remember was fumbling for my phone and possibly calling someone, but who and what I said, I had no idea. I woke up cuddled with a head of a dusty stag in my arms, listening to the sound of Gawain's snores and Gareth's weeping. 

Wait. What?

I looked blearily around and finally found Gareth huddled in a corner. He had stopped crying, but his face was still wet. I could barely make it out, in the dark, but it helped that he, like I, was as pale as a pale thing. Like a mushroom. Or Death. Or a dead mushroom. 

"You all right, Gar?" I said, clumsily crawling towards him. When I reached him, I tried to touch him, but he shrugged me off and shook his head. It occurred to me, slowly but surely, that perhaps Gareth really _was_ sad. About Mother. His next words seemed to confirm it. 

"I should have been here to stop it." 

"What, Agravaine killing Mother in a fit of Oedipal rage? I don't think any of us really -- er," I stopped and shrugged. Everyone had probably bet on me snapping first. 

Gareth only looked at me. We were the closest in age, Gareth and I, separated only by eighteen months. But we had never been very close -- Gareth was always the favorite, the golden child and I was -- well, I was a shitty little kid and no one's favorite. I sat down beside him and awkwardly patted him on the neck. 

"There, there," I said in what I hoped was a soothing tone. "Mother would have wanted to go out this way, you know. She always feared being put out to pasture." 

"That's a fucked way of thinking about it," Gareth muttered. 

"True though," I said. 

"Not really." Then he looked at me, with luminous grey eyes so much like hers. "I've never understood _why_ you became a writer, Mordred. I don't think you know much about human nature at all." 

I wasn't offended -- really. I knew that Arthur had pulled a lot of strings to get my first book published. Instead, I poked Gareth in the ribs. "Are you going to tell me what happened between you and Lynette? I mean, we're brothers and all, but I would've set you on fire to get a girl like that." 

"Nothing happened," Gareth said with a sniff. "We weren't right for each other after all." 

I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. Yes, Lynette lived to emasculate Gareth, every chance she could get, but judging from how lively and _happy_ Gareth was when he was around her -- happier than he ever had been with Lynette's incredibly rich but _incredibly_ boring older sister -- "... You didn't call her _Lancelot_ during sex, did you?" 

That's when Gareth hit me. 

But I was ready for it, or as ready as I ever was, growing up in a family like this, where you were likely to be hit at any given moment -- for discipline, affection, or just because you were there. Gareth's heart wasn't into it, he knew he was being unjust, and after a brief enough scuffle, I had the upper hand. Or upper something, anyway, since I was sitting on his chest. 

"Mordred," he gasped, "get off, damn you." 

"No, not until you apologize." 

"Apologize? You're the one who --!" 

"As if everyone didn't know about you and Lancelot, ducky. But let me tell you something -- he's _never_ going to give you what you want. Not while he's fucking Guinevere behind Arthur's back." 

Gareth stopped struggling and looked utterly sickened. "You're lying." 

"I don't lie," I said, which was a lie. 

Gareth pushed me off, saying, "Lancelot _wouldn't_ \-- he's Arthur's best mate, for God's sake --"

"And?" I said, grabbing his chin. "You know those Southern types, there's no loyalty in their blood, no love in their hearts. I heard he's been fucking her as long as she and Arthur have been married. You know what Mummy used to say --" I kissed him, and he shuddered, his hands reached up and squeezed my throat. They didn’t hurt me -- not much. 

"The only people you can trust are your family," Gareth whispered, his eyes wild. 

"That's right, ducky," I said tenderly. 

Finally, he pushed me away and got up, swaying slightly. It always surprised me how _big_ Gareth was. He could rival Gawain on his best day. But he usually was so stupidly self-conscious that he made himself seem smaller, like a teenage girl embarrassed with how much space her body took up. "Go to bed," he said, his voice rough and I wanted to shiver, I was so turned on. I was utterly fucked in the head and I knew it, but then again, I had been born like this. 

On my way back to my room, I saw a flash of orange in the corner of my eye. 

"Freak!" Lovell hissed as I passed by. 

"Go back into your room before I eat you," I hissed back. 

He disappeared. 

*

I saw Arthur on the last day before I left Orkney for the mainland. He was waiting for me by Mother's grave, holding a big, expensive bouquet, full of white lilies. It looked wrong, in this muted, rocky landscape, but then again, so did Arthur. The City had seeped into his skin, until he was nothing but an expensive suit, with clear skin and a clearer conscience. The wind didn't stir his perfectly arranged hair, not one strand. It made me sick to look at him.

"Mordred," he said, warmer than he had in the past. Back when he was sure he would have children with Guinevere, before the doctors told him otherwise. "Mordred," he said again, smiling his white, even smile. "I have to say, I was -- touched by your phone call. I chartered a plane here, straight from London. How are you?" 

"Not so well, Arthur. You know, my mother just died, and that's her over there, rotting away." 

He winced. "My sincere condolences. Morgause was a firecracker -- she and I had some wonderful times together." Then, reflectively, he said, "We loved each other, in a way." 

"She was your fucking _sister_ ," I snarled and he took a step backward, his hands raised as if to ward me off. 

”Half-sister,” he said mildly

”You unbelievable _fuck_.”

"Mordred --" he said my name like it was a talisman, like it could stop me from hurting him. But the only thing it did was enrage me further. "You have to understand that was a different time -- I was coked out of my _mind_ , most days. I didn't know until she told me -- and by then you were already --" 

"You don't belong here, Arthur," I said. "Get out while you still can." 

He shook his head sadly, but seemed inclined to follow my advice. A waiting car whisked him away.

I walked back to the house, though it was a long way. Gareth was waiting for me there, and I gave him a bright smile. After a moment's hesitation, he smiled back. 

I am my father's son, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, Dobby nonnie, for betaing. I just wish I had time to write out the Scottish accents phonetically! Alas.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [More Dreadful - Art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2242653) by Anonymous 




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